Beneath
by obaona
Summary: Castiel falls with Anna, but remembers exactly what he is. Sixteen years later, he meets John Winchester standing over a grave.
1. Ages 0-7

Title: Beneath the Stars

Author: obaona

A/N: At end.

* * *

Castiel is two years old.

He sits on a colorful floor, blocks in front of him. He has been given the task of acquiring and placing said blocks in some kind of pattern. It's incredibly tedious, but it does give Castiel the opportunity to practice using this child's body. His body. He really needs to stop thinking of this body as a vessel; it's his in a way a vessel would never be. He is trapped in here, after all, he should embrace its various flaws and features.

"Possibly autism," the woman tells his parents, Gregory and Catherine Novak. She speaks quietly enough Castiel thinks he's not supposed to hear her. "But what's important to note is that you caught it early, and his delays are primarily social. You said he started communicating with you when he was six months old?"

Castiel begins to make a fractal, laid flat. The exacting nature of fractals makes his small hands spasm, his movements still frustratingly clumsy. He's a full four centimeters off on the last one he places. He frowns, concentrates, and nudges the block.

"It was the weirdest thing," Gregory whispers. "It's like he decided to establish sign language with us. Signals for wanting milk, or wanting his diaper changed. It took me weeks to realize he wasn't repeating the same action and over for no reason."

"But he doesn't like being touched. He always shies away," Catherine says. She sounds upset, and Castiel pauses in placing his blocks. "I just don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"Honey, you're not doing anything wrong," Gregory adds, and when Castiel looks up he has his hand on his wife's shoulder. He looks tired, and new gray strands have appeared in his dark hair.

Castiel's tiny fist tightens around his current block, the letter A staring back at him. Fallen angels are normally born to barren couples, and he can't help but think that they weren't expecting _him_ to be their child. He knows how much most humans treasure their children, and by falling – and remembering, more importantly – Castiel has taken that away from them. He was born from the line of his vessels, which seems appropriate enough, but that doesn't make it any easier on Gregory and Catherine. He's failing badly at trying to be a human child.

The psychologist begins to reassure Catherine, explaining that Castiel has some kind of disease. It's a little insulting, but at least they're nowhere the truth.

Feeling vaguely guilty, Castiel returns to his fractal. He's almost finished it when Catherine comes over to him. Like always, she kneels in front of him first, then holds out her hand. "Time to go, sweetie."

Castiel looks at his mother, takes a deep breath, and then purposely takes her hand. "I'm ready, Mom," he says, with a slight lisp.

She gives a surprised and delighted smile.

In that moment, Castiel silently promises her to try to be a better son.

* * *

 _In heaven, Castiel's physical form is amorphous at best. He's more light than matter, a creature of wings with no body. On Earth, of course, if he isn't in a vessel he looks much like his siblings – four wings, three faces, features like molten metal that captures color. He settles next to Anael, a wave that becomes a loop. An angel's version of sitting still. They exist in the sea between human heavens, looking down upon the earth._

 _"What do you see?" he asks her._

 _"Hope," Anael replies. "Emotion. Do you ever want to just feel, Castiel?"_

 _He rather thinks not, but doesn't let that thought slip out. "They are curious creatures," he says instead. "Humans. Their lives are so short, but they burn so brightly."_

 _"Sometimes," Anael says, "I'd rather be a flash of a sun instead of a long burning candle."_

* * *

The burst of pain is bright and overwhelming, and then rapidly becomes secondary to the fact that _he can't breathe_. The tree limb Castiel had been climbing swims in his vision, a good fifteen feet above his head. It takes almost twenty seconds for his body to begin to respond with a huge, gasping breath – he'd had the wind knocked out of him by the fall. His right arm, which he fell upon, is blazing fire to the beat of his pulse. It hurts.

Without even thinking, he screams.

Catherine bursts out of the house, running and practically falling to his side. She touches his shoulder, and he cries. Tears fall from his eyes for the first time since he'd been able to communicate using words instead, and Catherine says, "Oh, oh baby, you're okay, you'll be fine, we're going to take you to the hospital." She turns to the house, shouts, "Gregory, get out here!"

Castiel blinks out tears.

Carefully, Catherine starts checking him for other injuries. "Jimmy – Cas – do you have any other hurt spots?"

Castiel moans. The pain is so much more immediate than any battle in his true form. "N-no."

She takes a deep breath. "Okay, I'm going to pick you up." She always telegraphs the fact that she's going to touch him. He normally tries not to flinch from the contact, but she seems to know anyway. But this time, when her arms come around him and lift him up – careful not to jar his right arm – he leans into her. He pushes into her hold, suddenly desperate for a feeling other than the pain. Suddenly wanting comfort, like when his siblings had helped preen his wings.

She gasps, quietly. She hugs him for a long minute before Gregory comes back, saying he's started the car.

That's the first time.

* * *

Castiel doesn't remember being born. Not exactly.

He remembers a mass of confusion that seemed to last forever, sensations piled upon each other with no self-awareness behind them. All he could do was feel. And he felt _everything_.

It was hell.

He remembers the shock of light, the shock of touch, the shock of cold. In billions of years, he'd never felt things so unattached to his own consciousness. Even the oddness of taking a vessel and cramming himself into a single head and a mere four limbs didn't compare. His angelic mind was being shunted through a human one. He doesn't know for sure, but he imagines he screamed a lot in those days. The humans, including his parents, probably didn't think much of it. Human babies cry a lot, for attention or food or comfort.

Castiel was clawing himself back into awareness.

* * *

Castiel is four years old, and he has a playdate.

Her name is Amber. She's four, like him, and in every other way she is his complete opposite. She is bright, cheerful, and expressive. The first thing she does is give him a hug, curly black hair falling into his face. The feeling is irritating, but he returns her hug anyway. "Hi," Castiel says.

She grins at him. "Hi, Jimmy!"

Castiel frowns.

"Oh, bubbles!" Amber says, and heads for them. They're in the Novak's backyard, beyond the porch and on the grass with a tub of soap to make bubbles. Amber picks up a utensil and starts running, large bubbles trailing after her.

"I prefer Cas," Castiel says. He supposes he should have accepted his human name, but he didn't quite understand the relevance as a three year old, and ended up badly pronouncing his own name repeatedly whenever Catherine and Gregory tried to call him Jimmy. Cas was close enough. And it's probably better not to be known as Castiel; that would give the game away, as Anael might say.

Amber spins. "What does _prefer_ mean?"

"I like Cas as my name," Castiel explains.

She drags the ring through the soap again. "Okay." She stretches out the handle to Castiel. "Want a turn?"

Castiel obediently takes it and begins to run, letting the bubbles go. He likes the shimmer of all colors on them, reminding of him his lost wings in a way that manages not to be painful. When he closes his eyes and runs – which Catherine still lectures him about – he can almost feel them, dragging through the air, ready to lift him.

After having the bubbles for exactly as long as Amber did initially, he hands the ring back. "Your turn," he says.

He watches Amber out of the corner of his eye, and sets to listening to his mother speak with Amber's mother. He's found that adults rarely think too closely about what they say around children, assuming the child can't understand the conversation. Granted, Amber probably isn't going to understand, but Castiel comprehends enough. It helps him alter his behavior to be more typical.

"You really let him pick his own name?" Amber's mother asks Catherine.

"If it makes him happy," Catherine says, an edge to her voice, "then I'm fine with it."

Amber's mother is called Eliana, as it turns out. Castiel plays with Amber for an hour, letting her pull him into playing house – a ritual that apparently involves pretending to be an adult, and requires a lot of imagination, as well as willingness to ignore logical contradictions – and letting her take the lead. His verbiage is more advanced than hers, and he finds himself using simpler words to compensate. Amber is fairly easy to get along with, but eventually he tires of acting normal.

Castiel walks up to Catherine and Eliana, asking his mother, "May I color?"

Catherine is halfway through nodding when Amber runs up to Eliana, and Eliana says in Spanish, "You should call him Jimmy. He should know his own name."

"Cas is my name," Castiel says in the same language, frowning at her. He feels offended.

Eliana jerks and stares at him. "You didn't tell me you were teaching Jimmy Spanish, Catherine," she says.

Catherine stares at Castiel. "I haven't." She pauses. "Sweetie, where did you learn those words?"

Castiel doesn't meet her eyes. He's failed, again. Of course he knows all languages – angels aren't afflicted with the curse of Babel. Idioms, culture, those he doesn't understand, but language to language is incredibly easy. He's retained much of his mind, forcing it to function through a human child's body, and until now he'd been thankful his speech was included. "I'm sorry," he says at last, looking at his mother.

"You don't need to be sorry," Catherine says gently. She smiles at him, holds out an arm. "Come here?" she asks. And she's asking, not requiring.

Castiel goes up to her and she enfolds him in a hug. He relaxes, breathing in the smell of her shampoo. She runs a hand down his back, and it feels good.

She lets him go after a minute. "Why don't I get you some crayons and paper?" she asks.

Castiel nods.

Amber and her mother don't come back.

Castiel doesn't mind. He draws instead, and if he hides protection sigils in childish scribbles, no one needs to know that but him.

* * *

 _Castiel sees an angel, all cool angles and exact movements. If Castiel is a wave, she is several. He watches her, realizing he doesn't know her name. Her rank is obvious, part of her being, but somehow he has never met her. She must rarely travel these lower heavens, closer to earth and humanity._

 _He sits in a loop, next to Anael. "Who is that?"_

 _Several of Anael's faces turn towards him, as she flickers between a wave in heaven and her true form on earth. She's surprised. "Naomi," she says. "You don't remember her?"_

 _"No," Castiel says. "Should I?"_

 _Anael goes still. She is head of his garrison, and she never hesitates. "Yes."_

* * *

Castiel is seven.

Elementary school is a social exercise for him, not an academic one. He speaks every known language with perfect grammatical skill (though he has learned to hide this ability), understands math on the logical level because it echoes the reality angels naturally see (the math is in some ways a new concept, and in other ways an old friend), and witnessed much of human history. Unfortunately, his teachers rarely like his corrections on the last category. Castiel has gotten better at simply going with the errors instead of commenting on them. Seven year olds do not remember with what the Tower of Babel was really like. (Unimpressive, in a word.)

It's summer, and afternoon recess is letting out. He's a single grade ahead of his peers, all his parents would allow, concerned about his social life. He doesn't mind being held behind, really. Three grades ahead really wouldn't be much better.

He heads for the swings, ignoring his classmates. They instantly split into their own groups, organizing themselves into an activity. Kickball, or some imaginary game. Castiel likes the wind as he swings, pumping his legs to go higher and higher. After twelve minutes, he stops in preparation for the end of recess.

A group of boys who are fond of mocking him are huddled together. It's not normal – they're usually the most boisterous – and Castiel quietly walks over to them.

" – believe you caught it! Look, let me try to get the other wing."

Wing. Castiel pushes through two of the boys, who let him through out of surprise. Allen, one of the leaders, is poking at a fly.

Allen has a pair of tweezers, and he jabs at the fly. "Jeez, it's all over the place, can't get the other one," he says.

Some indescribable emotion filling Castiel, he bursts forward and knocks Allen back. He gently gathers the struggling fly in hands, staring down at it. It doesn't even seem to realize it's missing a wing. The remaining one flaps wildly, skittering across Castiel's skin. It can't survive like this. It's going to die.

"Hey!" Allen shouts. "What –"

The fly tickles as it moves. That's how small it is. How small it is now, unable to reach the rest of the world, unable to soar through the air. It'd be a mercy to kill it, unlike waiting for it to starve to death, or be plucked up by a bird.

Castiel gently lets it flap off his hands onto the ground, and then punches Allen in the face.

The boy cries out in shock and pain before trying to aim his own swing, but now instinct has kicked in for Castiel. He simply steps to the side, drives a fist into his kidney, and then kicks the side of his leg. Allen goes down. The other boys pile on top of Castiel while an adult screams somewhere in the distance, "STOP!" but Castiel has no intention of stopping.

"It was innocent!" he realizes he's shouting. "It was innocent!" An elbow into another boy's face leaves an empty spot, and an adult drives through it, grabbing Castiel by the arm and yanking him away from the boy he was about to trip.

Castiel screams when the adult grabs him and holds him almost like a hug, his arms down at his sides. He screams again more out of frustration than rage, and then goes limp. The adult, a man, nearly drops him, but doesn't let go.

Mrs. Anderson, Castiel's own teacher, is separating at Allen's friends, eyes wide and face pale with shock. Castiel pants, willing his breathing to calm. She looks at the man holding Castiel. "Take him to the principal," she says. "I'll have an aide cover your class."

"You going to fight me?" the adult man asks, looking down at Castiel. Another teacher, presumably.

Castiel takes one breath before replying, listening to the boys crying. "I think the beating proved my point."

The man blinks at him, reluctantly lets Castiel go for a moment, and then takes his upper arm in a firm but not bruising grip. He takes Castiel to the principal's office, the lights in the hallway droning into Castiel's eyes. He sits Castiel down in a chair. Within a few minutes the secretary finds a first aid kit, and the teacher puts Neosporin on Castiel's cut up knuckles. After that, apparently satisfied that Castiel will no longer be violent, he leaves Castiel with the secretary, who says nothing to him.

Castiel sits in silence. He flexes his hands, marveling at the cuts and bruises from a relative few blows. He's known for a long time how much more delicate he is this way, but until now he'd never felt that it mattered much. Because he didn't need his angelic strength. His parents had always kept him safe. His life, if confusing, was peaceful enough. But Castiel is not peaceful.

His memories roil within. All of them.

He spreads his hands wide, breaking the newly-formed scabs, treasuring the grounding pain.

The door opens. "Oh, sweetie." Catherine is at his side in a moment, her bright blue eyes shimmering with tears. "What happened?"

"I lost my wings, Mommy," Castiel says. "I lost my wings." Then he pushes his head into her shoulder and weeps.

* * *

 _Castiel flies._

 _Anael has to struggle to catch up, but she does manage it, something similar to laughter transmitting over to him through the Host. He weaves through human heavens – appearing like a moment of lightning and thunder – until he reaches the border of the greater structures of heaven. He settles on that edge, a cloud in his mind._

 _One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two years, three months and four days ago. For a period of three weeks, Earth time. And he was on Earth, he's certain of that._

 _"Did you go looking?" Anael asks._

 _"Do I want to see?" he asks her. All of earth lays below, slowly marching through time._

 _Her waves mellow. "I don't know if you do, Castiel." She shimmers. "But for myself, yes."_

 _"Do you remember where I was?" He leans into her, more a meeting of minds than true physical contact._

 _"Melos. You tried to hide the children from the Athenians."_

* * *

He recognizes the carpeting. Interlocking blocks of primary colors, as well as some foam flooring near bins of toys. It looks more like a child's room – more like Castiel's own room – than a doctor's office, like the one he'd gotten his vaccinations. The walls are a muted yellow. Catherine leads him to a chair and table that fits his own size, and he sits down without being asked. Catherine kisses his forehead, and then takes Gregory's hand and leaves.

The psychologist, a woman with dark hair and dark eyes but a calm smile, sits opposite him, on the floor so she's level with him. "Hi, Cas. My name is Sally. Can I shake your hand?"

He takes her hand, applies the socially acceptable pressure, and releases. "Hi, Sally."

"Your parents told me that you like to draw," Sally says. "Would it be all right if I drew with you for a while?"

Castiel nods.

Sally smiles brightly, and gets out construction paper and some crayons. She picks out yellow paper and a blue crayon for herself, and starts drawing wavy lines. Castiel, beginning to feel suspicious, takes a piece of white paper and begins drawing a trees with spindly limbs. He hides a few sigils in the curves, as a matter of habit. Statistically, it's unlikely his parents will ever encounter something supernatural – at least not one that is dangerous to them – but a little precaution is a good tactic in any battlefield. He finishes the drawing with a stick figure and a yellow sun.

"May I?" Sally asks, touching his drawing. "I love your trees, they remind me of when all the leaves fall, and there's only the branches. What are these?" she asks, pointing at the hiding sigil he drew.

Castiel freezes. "Nothing."

Sally nods. "Okay. Cas, I want you to know this is a safe place, and you can tell me anything you want to, okay?"

"Okay," Castiel says warily.

"Can I ask you about these lines?" she asks, pointing to the stick figure. Castiel blinks. Without realizing it, the spindly lines of the trees make vague wing shapes. When Castiel remains silent, she asks, "Are they wings?"

Oh. This is about the incident at the school, for which he was expelled. "No," he lies.

Sally watches him for a second, but her expression remains gentle. She hands Castiel a piece of paper this time, and gets another for herself. She begins to draw a more embellished stick figure, in orange. "Can you draw me a picture of yourself?" she asks. "This one is me. I'm orange because that's my favorite color."

Castiel stares down at the paper. He has the sudden urge to draw himself as he really is, as waves of light and intent, or in his physical form – which of course she would find frightening or monstrous. Except he's not really any kind of angel anymore. He picks up a black crayon, then puts it down. "I'd rather not." He meets her eyes.

She nods, accepting his answer. "All right. Can we talk instead?"

No. "Okay."

"Do you feel angry a lot, Cas?"

 _Do you feel angry at me, Castiel? No, I feel nothing. Good._

His breathing has picked up. "No, I feel nothing."

Sally pauses, and Castiel realizes that was the wrong response. "How did you feel at school, Cas? When you had the fight with those boys?"

"Don't take my memories," Castiel whispers. Do human psychologists do that? Take memories? He's seen them take out parts of the human brain, coursed electricity through it. Do they do that to children? What about when he's older? He stares at Sally, suddenly feeling very afraid. "I want to remember."

She seems mildly surprised, quickly hidden. "Has anyone taken your memories, Cas?"

He can't answer. Of course he can't answer. She wouldn't believe him even if she understood to begin with. He feels stricken, feels numb. This body, so young, can't process the things he feels. Maybe as badly as his angelic body did. "I – no."

"You can tell me anything, all right?" Sally says very gently. "I won't hurt you. Your parents are here, any time you want them. And I won't ever take your memories."

Castiel controls his breathing.

"Did someone hurt you?" Sally asks.

"I miss my wings," he says, and that is _not_ what he intended to say. "No, I don't," he quickly adds. "I was being silly."

"Did someone hurt your wings?" Sally guesses.

"Humans don't have wings," Castiel replies. "I was being silly."

"Cas, you can tell me anything, no matter how silly it sounds. I promise. You're safe here."

The words want to burst out of him, shoved deep for seven years. This wasn't part of the plan. He was supposed to _forget_. By his own choice, so he could feel, so he could experience all the things he felt too much pain to reach for. The words boil in his chest, ready to overflow, and then they do. "She shoved a pin in my eye," he says, and Sally almost starts. "And then took out all the bits she didn't like. But I got them back." He nods at Sally, feeling a surge of satisfaction. "They hurt, but at least they're mine."

"Who did, Cas?"

"She hasn't been to earth in millennia," Castiel tells Sally. Panic begins to flood in, irresistible. His breathing becomes rapid. "She won't come back. She won't."

"Okay," Sally says instantly. "Okay. Your mom is going to come in a second."

True to her word, Catherine is at Castiel's side very quickly. She must have been watching. She enfolds Castiel in her arms, warm and comforting human touch. "It's okay, baby," she whispers into his ear. He leans into the contact, letting her pull him into her lap and rock him. The motion is oddly soothing, and he begins to relax. He begins to let go of the memories of heaven's tortures, all he suffered and lost. His mother may not know who he really is, may not know that none of this is her fault, it's all his and he's got countless years of suffering to make up for, but she loves him. She wants to keep him safe. She wants him happy.

For the first time, Castiel weeps with the expectation of it getting better.

Catherine holds through it, until the sobs slowly break off. He feels fuzzy, absolutely exhausted like the time Gregory took him hiking. He barely feels it when Catherine transfers him to Gregory, then to the car, and then to home.

He sleeps.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, already changed into pajamas. He hears his parents' talking, a quiet murmur that barely reaches his room. He gets up, pads silently to his door and then cracks it, listening.

" – hurt him, Greg. I don't know who, but I'm going to find out and make them suffer," Catherine says, voice dark.

"We will," Gregory promises. "But for now, we need to focus on Cas. Take the data she asked for. If he stabilizes maybe we won't have to put him on medication. He's so young …"

"I don't think he's psychotic," Catherine practically hisses. "He's just interpreting whatever happened in an odd way."

There's a several minute silence. Castiel almost thinks the conversation is over, when Gregory says, "He's always been … odd. You know that. Not just how incredibly smart he is, all the things he somehow knows. He said that fight was logical, that the beating he gave those boys was justified because they'd never do anything like that again. And months go by where he doesn't show any emotion, like he's mimicking us instead of actually feeling it."

"It's there," Catherine snaps. "You're at work, I'm here with him all day. And I'm telling you, it's there. He just – he just hides it. No matter what I do." Her voice trails off into defeat.

Gregory says firmly, "Whatever you want to do, I'll support you."

A gentle laugh. "No drugs," Catherine says. "We'll continue with therapy and be there for him."

Castiel closes the door.

The next day, he says, "I love you, Mom," and he means every word.

* * *

The story is a WIP, but I expect to be giving regular updates. Yes, Dean and Sam will eventually appear, as will John and Anna. I haven't totally decided on ages yet, but I'll probably be throwing some degree of logic/consistency with the show out of the window. Just for simplicity's sake, I decided to make his parents' Jimmy's parents (as far as I know, there's not much known about them in the show, so this is all original). For some reason, I couldn't get the idea of Castiel falling and remembering his angelic life out of my mind. The bunny grew from the notion that people would probably think him anything from autistic to sociopathic. Please let me know what you think!


	2. Ages 10-11

A decade has passed since he fell. His body is still so small, half the size of his human father's. In the darkness, he flexes his hands, watching the interplay of muscle, tendon and skeleton. In five to eight years, he'll approach a physical status in which he might be able to care for himself and act independently. His human parents have been loving, and sometimes when he thinks of all they have done for him, his eyes sting, but he can't seem to let go of his memories, so hard-won, but also so freely left behind.

His grace is somewhere, sunken into ground, into water, into life. His wings that ache like phantom limbs are with it.

Anna is somewhere, too. He hopes she's forgotten. It's so hard to hide. His parents try very hard to understand why their child is so strange and distant, and for Castiel, it is a never-ending battle to open up to them. When the majority of his long life has taught him not to trust his family.

A chill passes through him, and his eyes snap open.

He's at Ashley's new house, spending the night. A blanket is stretched above his head, part of a pillow/blanket fort he'd carefully built with Ashley. It's only meant to last the night, but Castiel found it satisfying to make it sturdy enough to handle them going in and out over the last few hours of the day. And Ashley hadn't minded his unusual attention to that kind of detail – unlike most of the friends his parents' have tried to set him up with over the years, Ashley doesn't care about his quirks. If he annoys her, she just gets up and leaves, which is fine with him. Sometimes it even makes him smile, inexplicably.

She's sleeping next to him, a mess of curly blond hair. Her breathing is deep and even.

He hears footsteps, but it sounds like one is dragging. For some reason, it unnerves him. He sneaks out of the tent, bare feet silent on the wood floors. The only light in the living room is from the lamp posts outside. A tree between the lamp post and the house casts long, spidery shadows.

He turns silently, examining the house. Then he sees her – a pale outline of a figure, walking in the kitchen. She pauses at the fridge, then resumes her path.

"Hello," he says softly.

She continues on silently, so Castiel follows her. She's flickering between two forms, one pale and almost without shape, and one more like a teenage girl, facial features somewhat indistinct and eyes blank. The digital clock on the microwave turns off and on as she passes.

Castiel gets in her way. "Why are you here?" he asks.

She looks at him, flickering.

"You should pass on," Castiel says, feeling the echo of her sadness. "It's not safe for you to remain chained to this sphere." Eventually, she'll forget herself and become a violent spirit, even if it takes centuries.

She walks right through him. All the little hairs on his arms stand up straight, and he shivers at the sudden burst of sharp cold.

He turns, considering her. Then he goes into the kitchen and finds the sage and salt, along with a lighter. He won't be able to burn much – he'd done that once in his own house, and set off the fire alarm – but he gathers a bundle of fresh sage, and lights a tip. He waves it over all the doors in the living room first, then the bedrooms and bathroom. He sprinkles salt here and there. At the last one, the ghost disappears like a gutted flame.

Castiel goes back to bed.

He inquires about the history of the house over pancakes.

Ashley's mother, Mrs. Richardson, doesn't even give him an odd look before going off into one of her spiels. Gregory had, trying to be out of Castiel's hearing, called her 'one of those superstitious hippies' so Castiel was fairly certain she'd tell him what he wanted to know.

She does, waving a spatula as she speaks. "Oh, it's an old house, built in the 1800's. Legend has it that we have dozens of ghosts! The most popular one is a teenage girl that died of consumption just before her wedding day, but I hear there's an old man who used to work on the back property, too. Oh, and a young boy is said to haunt that old oak tree out back –"

Castiel takes careful mental notes.

* * *

 _Angels have no need of privacy. The Host is thousands of voices, his siblings speaking to each other either directly or indirectly. Some sing praises, some discuss battle, and none debate life. Disagreements are so small as to nearly disappear, lost in glorious unity. He doesn't hear all words at all times, the voice of his family a murmur until he chooses to focus on a single thread of thought._

 _Castiel learns to narrow his voice thinner than that thread. He sits in his current favorite heaven, that of a monk who lived quietly in the wilderness for thirty years. Within the malleable shape of the monk's memories, Castiel has carved out a little spot for himself – a space under a tree, a falling wall now encased in his words and memory. It is his in the way the rest of heaven could never be, because it's private._

 _Melos falls somewhere just before the middle. Before it, he lists the destruction of the MIdianites, and after, he lists the destruction of Cartharge. Spread throughout are smaller atrocities. The Black Plague, later in the list, is not human destruction, but he vaguely remembers being present regardless. His time during the Ten Plagues is entirely gone. He somehow has the distinct impression he wasn't there, but he cannot remember where he was in turn. He writes down all the blank spots, too._

 _Castiel touches the crumbling wall of his memories, the stone rough under his fingertips. He's taken human form, for the sake of his unwitting host. He scratches in new dates, new details as they come to him._

 _He's clawing at his own memory. Clawing himself._

 _One memory has come back almost in full._

 _He saved a child. He does not know when. But he remembers taking the child in his arms, and running. He remembers being caught, and indistinct siblings killing it. Him. Then he meets Naomi, and she tells him she'll fix him. He'll be safe when she fixes him._

 _Then he kills that child a thousand times, each repetition feeling the sting of loss lessen._

 _"Castiel," Anael says softly, appearing out of nothing. She kneels next to him, in the form of her last vessel, a woman from the depths of Africa. "These are new."_

 _"So much has been lost," he whispers._

 _"Not just memories," Anael tells him. "But our feelings, too."_

* * *

At one in the morning, Castiel gets up out of bed, puts on his normal clothes and grabs the bag he'd hidden under his bed. His room is generally conspicuously neat, even the stacks of books from the library, so he has little fear of that particular set of belongings being found. He uses pillows to create a vaguely-human shaped form on his bed, then dresses in warm clothing. Lastly, he takes Catherine's house keys and sneaks out of the house with his bike.

He'd had to make a story about a school project to get access to old newspaper records, but he eventually found what he was looking for. Fortunately, that cemetery was within biking range of his house. He rides fast, knowing he'll need to be back before dawn, in five hours.

He keeps an eye out for police cars. He knows from experience that it is incredibly inconvenient to be taken home by police, for merely wandering out of his parents' sight.

Since it's fall, a cool mist has settled over everything, making visibility low. He parks his bike out of the gates, then climbs over them. (He's spent years mastering this body to its fullest potential. He had to learn fighting styles from his books, but climbing and gymnastics had been an easy sell, even at six years old.) Headstones, some falling apart from age, dot the landscape. He goes over each, until he finds the one he's looking for.

Jennifer Hathes. 1807-1826.

He takes out five white emergency candles and sets them out in a circle, the five points of the pentagram. He lights them, and then chants quietly, "Amate spiritus obscure, te quaerimus, te oramus, nobiscum colloquere, aput nos circita."

Jennifer appears. She looks human this time, blank eyes sad, staring down at him where he kneels before the candles. His jeans are getting soaked by the night dew.

Castiel gets right to the point. "Why are you here?"

Her mouth moves, but he hears nothing.

"Do you wait for your spouse to be?" Castiel guesses.

She nods, frowning. She looks around, as if expecting him to appear.

Castiel pauses, thinking. "He's not here anymore. He's waiting for you. You need to let go of this place, of your house, and you'll rejoin him."

She gestures frantically, as if frustrated by his inability to understand.

"You died, Jennifer, and so has he. It's time for you to be together, and for that –"

The candles go out. She walks past them, up to him, and places a ghostly hand on his cheek. Cold flows over his skin. Her mouth moves, but he's able to read the words this time: _He promised_.

Castiel takes a deep, frigid breath. "You'll have to forgive him, then. You did love him, didn't you?"

She rises to her feet, looks at the sliver of moon in the sky. Grief falls over her face, as if she suddenly realizes how long she's been waiting, how long that promise has been broken. She turns back to him and smiles sadly. Then she nods, and disappears.

Castiel stares at her grave, thinking about a love that lasted nearly two centuries. Humans feel so much more than angels do. Humans allow themselves so much more. He presses a hand over his own heart, feeling the aching sadness of Jennifer's loss. He thought he'd feel so much more when he fell – that emotions would burst out of him, bright and loud like Anael's even before she fell. But instead they have creeped up on him, splintering out in unexpected ways and moments.

The fractured lines of Naomi's tampering split a little farther.

He gathers the candles, finds his bike, and rides home.

* * *

"Cas!" Ashley tugs at Castiel's sleeve. The summer sun is beating them down with heat, and they've retreated to a part of the playground with shade. "What are you looking at?"

Castiel starts, turning to his best friend. "Nothing," he says quickly, attempting to give a reassuring smile. But he finds himself turning back, staring.

He sees a mother and a child. Except what the tired, harried-looking mother is patiently feeding a sandwich isn't human. Its face is pale, with dark rings around its eyes, and a circular mouth with edges of tiny teeth. As Castiel watches, horrified, the changeling's mouth opens like it's preparing to feed. And that's what it is – Castiel, until he fell, hadn't been on earth in quite some time, but he recognizes it regardless. He didn't know he'd even be able to see that, after falling. He blinks rapidly.

"It's not nothing," Ashley says. She steps in front of him, raising a demanding eyebrow. "Well?"

Castiel frowns, thinking fast. "Can you do me a favor?" he asks.

She sighs. "What? Is it something weird again? If it is, then I totally get to a new video game from you."

"We need to write an essay."

* * *

Castiel carefully unlocks his weapon chest.

Unlike during the Middle Ages, it's not considered appropriate for an eleven year old child to own weaponry (Castiel remembers squires being that age), so Castiel has to use unorthodox means to get his and keep them hidden. He convinced Gregory to get a small, silver knife at a garage sale, then liberated it in such a way that his father thought he'd just lost it. He bribed an older brother of an acquaintance (one of Catherine's attempts to get him friends other than Ashley) for a proper combat knife. He really wishes he had his angel blade or a sword, but at this age knives are a more suitable weapon anyway. His arms are still small and spindly. Besides that, he has a stolen taser (he'd felt guilty about that) and an assortment of spell ingredients – none particularly rare, but useful nonetheless. All of it is kept hidden in a chest in the back of his closet, with a fairly hardy lock he'd bought with allowance money.

After Jennifer, he'd realized that the supernatural hasn't left humanity alone. It's merely gone underground. Ashley's family mildly believed in the supernatural, but they didn't view it as a threat. His own parents were Christians, but generally skeptical of actual paranormal activity. If they are to remain safe, someone who knows the truth of the world's nature needs to make it so.

Castiel gets out his last item, recently acquired. A jug of gasoline. It's small enough to fit into his backpack, if there's nothing else there. He straps the combat knife to his leg.

Today, he'll have his first kill as a human.

Finding where was a lot harder than he'd thought it would be. The essay he'd written with Ashley had given him enough data to make educated guesses, based on the fact that the changeling mother would probably need to roam and that her human identity would likely be incomplete. That combined with the one changeling he'd seen at the local park told him where the changeling mother was likely to be based. Once she's gone, the mothers and children dead, the police will get involved, but not most likely not before.

Castiel doesn't intend to wait that long, but he fears he's already taken too much time. He found an article in the local newspaper about a couple of missing mothers and their children, from a full week ago. He called an anonymous tip line, asking the police to look in abandoned houses, but he has no way of knowing if they listened.

So he takes the bus and then rides his bike down a nearly empty street. Dead lawns mark abandoned homes. He's alone, with Ashley covering for him, so his parents think he's at her house.

He jumps the fence on the first house, planning to enter from the back. A dried out swimming pool dominates the backyard, and a small porch is set up against the house. A window to a basement sits next to a sliding glass door. He checks the door first, but it's locked, and he doesn't know how to pick locks. (The librarian thought this an extremely suspicious topic.) So, the window.

It doesn't seem to have a lock, so he pulls hard. It doesn't budge, and several more attempts leave his fingers going numb. He traces the edges of the window, clearing off gunk and dirt, then tries again.

It opens.

He waits almost ten minutes for some reaction, but no one comes.

Taking a deep breath, he slips in and falls silently to the floor.

There are ten cages spread out against a wall, all of them with a young human child in them. Most are dirty, some with tear-streaked faces. The children look sickly, but asleep. Not dead. Their small chests – smaller than his – rise and fall.

The window is too high for him to pull any of the children through; he's going to have a hard time doing so himself. He could try to convince an adult to follow him back here, but that plan carries its own risks – the few times he'd attempted to persuade even his own parents of something they weren't prepared to accept, he'd always failed. That means he needs to go through the house, and potentially confront the changeling mother. Castiel kneels, gets the jug of gasoline with one hand and his combat knife in the other. A lighter sit heavily in his pocket.

Castiel is very old. He's a soldier of God, even if he's trapped in a human child's body. He's killed countless creatures like this. He can kill this one. He's an angel, he doesn't feel fear; the uneasiness in his stomach is his human brain attempting to instill self-preservation. He stiffens his spine, then creeps up the stairs.

He hears movement. Someone is up there.

The backpack slides off his back. He zips it open, takes out the jug and opens it, soaking several stairs with gasoline. Then he takes out his combat knife and lighter.

The door opens with a creak that makes Castiel wince. He darts out, but sees no one in the kitchen. There's disturbed dust on the floor. He goes back for the jug, and makes a circle of gasoline; he's starting to run out, so he leaves the rest at the door. He rounds the corner into the living room, hands clenched and knife at his side, hidden but available.

She's standing there, the changeling mother. He sees her true form, all discolored, slimy skin, with that lamprey mouth, like a shadow underneath the shell of her human appearance – a young woman, pretty. She whirls, startled, and then lets out a laugh. "Hi, sweetie," she says, still pretending to be human.

Castiel blinks at her, repulsed by her calling him by Catherine's nickname, then slowly backs up. "Sorry, I thought the house was abandoned," he says.

"You breaking into other people's houses?" she asks. "By yourself?"

Castiel hesitates, adrenaline pumping.

She seems to take that as an answer and laughs. "Another treat, then," she says, and lunges forward.

Castiel dodges back into the kitchen and around the door's corner, and she passes him by a foot or two, turning on a heel with startling speed. He slashes with his combat knife, scoring a long cut on her arm and she falls backward, letting out a pained cry. Slimy gunk drips from the wound. She hisses at him, "A little boy hunter," she says, stepping forward slowly.

Step by step, Castiel backs away, slightly moving to his left. He keeps his knife in front of him. He remembers where the puddle of gasoline lies.

"No running," the changeling mother chants, lilting.

Castiel turns and runs, flicking the lighter on. He drops it in the gasoline as he passes, falling to his knees past the puddle, trying to estimate her range of attack – he feels a whoosh of a close call, and the heat of the fire, and then a frenzied scream. The basement door is where he stops, knife held out in front of him protectively, but there's no need.

The changeling mother is dying. She fell into the fire, and it licks over her skin, a stench like Castiel's never smelled erupting from her. Castiel watches her die for a full minute, before she stops moving. He wipes his blade clean and returns it to its sheathe. The fire is still going strong, and the curtains on the kitchen's window are beginning to catch alight. Castiel's shakes himself out of his near-shock – fear pulsing through his entire body now, after the fact – and runs down the basement steps, nearly slipping on his second, unused trap.

The ten children in cages are still unmoving. He pounds on the cages, shouting, "Wake up!" But they don't move. He pulls at the door, then stares at the lock.

A key. He needs a key, or someone stronger than himself.

He should have doused the fire. He should have thought to look for a key. He looks up the stairs, seeing a red glow.

He's a fool.

After a moment's hesitation, he takes a running jump and scales the wall to the basement window, and lifts himself out. He jumps over the fence and goes to the next door house, their lawn a healthy green, and pounds on the door.

An adult answers, "What is –"

"There's a fire!" Castiel shouts. "Look! And I heard kids – "

The adult takes a few steps out, eyes widening. "Stay here, kid." He shouts into his own house, "Sarah, call 911!" and then rushes out to next door. He stops and blinks at the fire for a second, then goes to his yard and gets a water hose and begins pulling it over to the house. He breaks a front window, and then starts spraying water.

A woman, presumably Sarah, rushes out the door past Castiel. He grabs for her arm, desperate words falling from his lips, "Wait, wait," he says. "There's kids in the basement, I heard them!"

"Is there fire in the basement?" she asks.

"No," Castiel says.

"Okay, show me," she says. She follows him to the basement window, and then stares at the kids in the cages. "Oh my God," she whispers. She looks at Castiel. "Tell Matt to get his bolt-cutters, right now."

Castiel runs to the pass the message. Matt drops the hose and dashes into the house, appearing again moments later. He follows Castiel to the back of the house, and with some difficulty gets into the basement. Sarah stays just outside of the house, as he clips each lock, grabs a child and hands them off to her. They're all still unconscious, but they're breathing. Castiel checks respiration and pulse on each as Sarah lays them out on the small porch. Then finally all ten are out, the abandoned house now ablaze.

Castiel exhales, feeling dizzy.

* * *

Catherine hasn't yelled at him yet. She'd wept briefly, while the police officer explained what happened here, then simply taken him in her arms. Instead, she sits with him on the curb, watching the firemen put out the house fire. Police have cordoned off the area with tape, and a crowd has formed outside of those lines. The ambulances are gone, including the one that checked Castiel over. The children should all be at the hospital now. Castiel knows they'll be okay, with the changeling mother dead. The mothers whose children disappeared and then reappeared miles away will be having a harder time.

A man in a suit walks up to Castiel, smiles reassuringly at Catherine. "Hey, there. I'm Agent Marcus, with the FBI. I'm here investigating some deaths that may be related to this case." He shows a badge momentarily, too quickly for Castiel to get a good look. "Can I ask you a couple of questions?"

Catherine's arm tightens around Castiel's shoulders. "Of course, agent."

He turns to Castiel. "I'm told you were the one who heard the kids screaming for help," he says.

Castiel nods warily. "Yes."

"Why were you here?"

Castiel opens his mouth, and then shuts it. He hadn't anticipated being caught here. He has no good reason to be here, and a lot to suggest he's here for a purpose – taking the bus, breaking into that specific house. He didn't think this through at all. "I just heard some kids crying," he says at last.

"Cas," Catherine says warningly. "Why were you in this neighborhood? You must have taken the bus to get here from Ashley's house."

The agent eyes him. "Did you know something was wrong here?"

Castiel looks away.

"It's all right if you did," the agent says, voice softening. "If you saw something really strange or scary, you can tell me, all right? I promise I'll believe you."

Does he know the truth? How is that possible? Anael had told him that the vast majority of humans discounted the existence of the supernatural. "She wasn't human," he says. "The woman in the house, before the fire started. I saw her, through the window, when I heard the kids."

Catherine starts. "Cas!"

"It's all right, ma'am," the agent says. "Children often see things that way. Is that why you were here, Cas? Did you start the fire?"

His mother noticeably stops breathing.

"No," Castiel says. "I saw something weird through the window. That's all."

Agent Marcus's eyes go dark and suspicious, but after a split second he smiles brightly again. "All right. I'm going to give you a card, okay? You call me if you remember anything else at all. My name is Caleb."

Catherine nods, takes the card. "Thank you."

The agent walks away, then takes out a small mirror. Castiel watches, puzzled, then the agent tilts the mirror so he's looking in Castiel's general direction. Through a mirror, the only way for a normal person to see a changeling. Of course, he'll see nothing but Castiel's very human body, if that's really what he's looking for. The agent heads for an old, beat up car. Castiel examines his card. It has a number for Special Agent Caleb Marcus, but none for the FBI itself.

Castiel looks up, but Caleb is gone.

* * *

Next chapter John appears!


	3. Ages 13-16

_Castiel fights at the gates of hell._

 _He spirals through demons surging out of it by the hundreds, a dozen angels flying in formation with him. He leads by example, his soldiers following all his turns, tighter and tighter. Angels are tireless, the curve of motion second nature to them. His wings obey his every command, no matter how hard he tells them to hold. Demons cling onto him, dying by his blade, a few from the chop of his wings. His garrison breaks through a wave of demons, light intersecting with dark._

 _The demons struggle out of this plane of existence, searching for earth. A few escape their blades, but not many. The majority are being pushed back to the gates, an endless struggle that seems futile – as more and more humans fall, go to the hell and return enemies. But this is God's command, to care for humanity, and so Castiel lifts wounded wings and begins to drive the demons in front of him again._

 _"Castiel, you and yours are recalled," Anael says, a beacon in the Host._

 _He smashes a demon with a wing, then tears it apart with his blade. Then he flies upward, his soldiers following. He says nothing. Not then._

 _Instead, he watches from a distance as dozens of demons escape._

 _"Anael," he says from the monk's heaven, staring at his lost memories written in stone. The missing decades and centuries, slowly being filled in. "Why were we recalled?"_

 _Anael kneels next to him. "I don't know."_

 _Castiel stares at her. "It is our nature to fight."_

 _She tilts her head. "Not always. We remember everything before Lucifer's fall." She traces the words on the stone. "Then we were all merely siblings."_

 _He pulls in his wings tightly. "I don't understand."_

 _"Neither do I," she says, and her wings arch over his._

* * *

It's past midnight.

Castiel's hands ache, partially from his second growth spurt at thirteen years old, partially from use. He's got cuts on his knuckles and his left hand is sore from swinging a machete, which he'd left behind in a hidden place in the yard (it's too big to hide on his person, normally). His back is probably going to be a spectacular set of bruising, but when he feels his ribs, he can't find any breaks. Maybe a hairline or two, based on the level of pain. It's enough that he holds his backpack in his hand. He'll have to be careful at school and P.E. for a while.

Mostly, though, he feels good. His mastery over his human body is increasing as he ages. Unofficial lessons in various martial arts has taught him much of how to shift his angelic combat prowess to his human one.

He walks up to his home and slowly opens the door, easing it past that squeak that won't seem to go away. Past the kitchen, into the living room –

Where his parents sit in the dark.

He freezes.

"Oh, so you _do_ care what we think," Gregory snaps.

Catherine lays a hand over his. "Cas, where were you?" She turns on the lamp next to the couch, then her eyes widen. "Is that blood?"

"I fell off my bike," Castiel says. They were the words he'd planned to use in the morning, when his hands wouldn't be smeared with blood, and instead covered by bandaids. It looks worse than it really is – he knows that from experience – but somehow he doesn't think his parents would appreciate that comment.

"That doesn't answer your mother's first question," Gregory says. His voice is without give. Though he's largely allowed Catherine to take lead with Castiel, when Catherine feels overwhelmed he will take charge. And then it feels like receiving orders again. "Sit."

Castiel sits.

"This is the third time in the past year we've woken to find you gone, and then bloody when you return," Gregory says. "That is unacceptable. 'Taking a walk' is not what is going on here. Neither is just 'meeting with some friends.' I want to know _where_ you have been and _why_."

Castiel beheaded a lone vampire. Though not after it got a few swings in. He doesn't say that, instead staring at the floor. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry," Gregory nearly shouts, "I want to know where my son has been!"

Silence.

"Is this about the kid at school?" Catherine asks. "That boy you frightened?"

"I didn't do that," Castiel says, though of course he did. A bully at school targeted Castiel and a couple of the other quieter children. With some gymnastics and midnight practice, he'd climbed up a nearly vertical wall to the roof, scared the crap out of the bully with a knife, and then returned the same way. He got an alibi from an inattentive teacher who could truthfully swear that Castiel didn't leave by the 'only' exit. "The teacher said I never left."

Gregory sighs, deeply. "I don't know how you did it, but I don't doubt you managed it somehow. Cas …"

"Is it about not letting you skip more grades? We want you to have a good relationship with your peers –" Catherine begins.

Gregory hushes her without a word, then gives Castiel a flat stare. "I will lock you in your bedroom at night if I don't get the truth. I don't want to, but I also don't want to wake up with my son dead, out in the city somewhere."

Locked in? Castiel's eyes widen. "I don't want that," he says at last.

Catherine asks, very quietly, "Are you seeing more monsters, sweetie? Is that where you've been?"

Castiel looks away guiltily before he can stop himself.

And Gregory calms. "All right, then." He glances at Catherine, and she reluctantly nods back. "Go to bed, Cas. We'll see you in the morning."

Castiel blinks. He's getting out of it this easy? That doesn't seem … likely. "I'm going to bed?"

Catherine blinks rapidly. "I can help you with your hands, if you want. But yes, we'll talk more in the morning."

Nodding slowly, Castiel gets up and heads for the bathroom, washing and cleaning his cuts, then going to bed. He curls under the covers, staring at the glowing stars on his ceiling. He can't pin down why exactly, but he's nervous. His parents are hiding something. It's not like doesn't have millennia worth of secrets himself, but all of them stay hidden for their sake as well as his. They wouldn't cope well with the truth, assuming Castiel could even set up a situation to show it to them. And he knows he has to hide from the eyes of heaven.

His sleep is troubled.

* * *

"We're not going to school," Gregory tells Castiel, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"Then where are we going?" Castiel asks.

"To see your psychologist and a colleague of hers," Gregory answers.

Castiel's heart picks up its pace. He's seen Sally off and on since he was very young. She'd at times fought for him to have more therapy, but when Castiel resisted his parents had always given in. Catherine, mostly. But a colleague? "For what purpose?"

Gregory frowns and doesn't reply for a long minute. "To get you better," he says finally.

* * *

 _This takes time for Castiel to remember: he's sitting in a chair and he can't move._

 _He let himself be strapped down. Simply by order. Every single time he forgets that he's supposed to struggle. That realization starts to occur in some small spurts of coherent thought, like pieces of memory filtering down into his conscious mind. He's bound to a fractured piece of heaven, where his form flickers between the one he takes on earth, the one he is when he takes shape in heaven, and the waves of light he prefers to be._

 _Naomi stands above him. She smiles gently. "It's all right, Castiel. I'm here to fix you."_

 _Castiel struggles to rise. "There's nothing wrong with me."_

 _"I know this will be unpleasant, but I'm here to help you," Naomi says, like he hadn't spoken. "Don't worry, you won't remember the pain."_

 _She raises a large pin, and puts it through the corner of his eye. It reaches down into his grace and where he stores his memories, where his decisions flow out of his experiences. He feels her tug at the threads of his thoughts, and it hurts._

 _He screams._

* * *

In the end, he refuses to speak.

He sits in sullen silence as the psychiatrist prepares to talk to his parents, staring down at the colored blocks on the carpet. Intellectually, he understands that the psychiatrist is simply trying to help him. The man had spent almost fifteen minutes explaining his presence and attempting to reassure Castiel about his purpose, before even asking questions. Castiel knows that the cause of the problem is his own memory and personality, which runs counter to that of a normal human child. He knows some of his behaviors mimic those of the mentally ill in this society.

It doesn't help the sharp pang of betrayal he feels.

"All right," the psychiatrist says. "Cas, I'm going to ask your parents some questions. Feel free to interrupt at any time, if you have anything at all to say. Your perspective is important to the decisions we make here."

Castiel nods warily.

"Can you tell me about when your concerns about Cas' safety began?" the psychiatrist asks.

Catherine gives Castiel a nervous look. "When he – when you, Cas – were four." She eyes the psychiatrist, then looks at Castiel head-on. "You ran into the street, after a flock of birds. There was a car coming, and the driver didn't see you – but you saw him. But you didn't move, instead you just watched the car coming."

Castiel remembers trying to spread his wings to fly, being shocked once again that he couldn't.

"I barely saved you in time," Catherine says, bright blue eyes drifting to her hands, in her lap. "Then again, at my sister's house. Six months later. You sneaked out to the train tracks and would stand on the line until the train was only a hundred feet away! You never showed any fear, none at all."

He had been afraid. That was the point. Feeling fear for the first time since his fall had been glorious. At the time.

"You always dream about flying," Catherine says, and then launches into the story of the one-winged fly at school and the ensuing fight. This time, she specifically talks about the fact that Castiel used martial arts to subdue the other boys – precise strikes. Something Castiel never knew they noticed. Then she talks about the police calling her to tell her son was at the site of a fire, started by an arsonist. Gregory is the one who has to tell the psychiatrist that the FBI agent suspected Castiel of starting the fire himself. Castiel was never able to give a proper explanation for his presence there, or how he knew about the children locked in the basement.

Unlike the times she's spoken with Castiel alone, she uses straightforward words.

Life-threatening behavior. No fear of death. Suicidal. Violence towards peers – the boys with the fly, the boy he'd threatened with a knife. Breaking and entering. Arson. Then disappearing at night, coming back bruised and bloody. An incident Castiel had nearly forgotten about, when a lady near his school got mugged, and he'd intervened, beating the teenager – four years older – pretty badly. A chest of weapons and strange, small bags of herbs and small bones.

"You broke into my chest?" Castiel asks her. "Is that why you were late coming here?"

"For your own safety, yes," Gregory says grimly.

Anger surges through Castiel. "They're for self-defense. Nothing else."

"Against what?" Catherine demands. " _Against what?_ "

Castiel looks away.

"Monsters?" Catherine keeps going. "Demons? Ghosts?"

"I'm not crazy!" he snaps.

The psychiatrist holds up a hand. "Cas, would you like to tell me your side of the story?"

Castiel stares at him, mind whirling. He needs to give a good explanation, he sees that now. He knows a lot more about how humans deal with aberrant behavior, and none of those methods are desirable. But neither can he stop; not with what he knows. He wishes desperately he could forget, and only take his memories back up when he's strong enough not to wilt under their weight. That was the plan. To forget, to feel, to come back.

He takes a deep breath, slightly surprised they're all waiting on him. "I want to be a soldier." Then he laughs. Because he _is_ one. He never stopped.

"What kind of soldier?" the psychiatrist asks.

"I'm not crazy," Castiel repeats. "And I'll fight whatever needs fighting. I'm not – I'm not _dangerous_." Not to you, he thinks. Even the bullies at school he only frightened. "I've been preparing myself, that's all. To be fit. To become a soldier as an adult. Join the army. Or the marines." The words spill out, good lies, good lies.

The psychiatrist nods. "All right. That makes sense to me, Cas. Can you tell me about when you were seven, the night of the fire? You said you saw a monster. Can you explain that to me, what you saw?"

Castiel shrugs. "I was a kid."

Gregory sighs.

"I was young," Castiel amends. "I don't know what I saw. I guess I was tired."

"And last night?" the psychiatrist asks, and Castiel knows Catherine didn't mention that in front of him. They must have spoken to the psychiatrist beforehand.

"I didn't say anything about seeing monsters last night," Castiel says evenly.

The psychiatrist nods, but with a sinking feeling, Castiel realizes the doctor doesn't believe him. The violence, threats, odd behavior – it's not enough. The psychiatrist guides to him to incidents he barely remembers, all the times of weakness when he'd spoken of his wings, of being an angel. He lies and denies, but it does him no good.

"I think this will help you," the psychiatrist says, and hands his parents a prescription.

* * *

 _Anael whirls in emotion. She_ feels _._

 _Castiel can only watch, understanding without having the same experience. He feels the shadows of emotion, he supposes. Clearly, he's felt a great deal of empathy, or kindness towards humans, considering how many disasters he's apparently attempted to intervene in. And he still feels those, if through a wall. Or through fractured glass, little strips of bright feeling in abstract patterns that make no sense, emotion strong here and not there._

 _Anael stays on earth. Castiel returns to his wall, tracing the words he'd placed there so carefully._

 _An angel called Naomi sends for him, and once again he forgets to struggle._

* * *

"No," Castiel says. He injects no emotion in the single word. He stares implacably at his parents, ignoring the single pill on the kitchen counter. "I refuse."

"Then," Gregory says, sitting at the counter with his hands folded in front of him, "James Cas Novak, you have two options. Number one is to take the medication under the supervision of us and your psychiatrist. Catherine and I," and here he takes her hand, "promise we will listen to your input on its effects. Number two, you are no longer allowed to leave the house without one of us present, excepting school – where we will drop you off and pick you up – and I will lock you in your room at night. Starting right now."

Castiel stares at the pill. What will it do to him? Will it harm him, when he's not truly insane? "Can I think about it?"

"Yes," Gregory says. "But until you agree to try it, I will do everything I just promised."

Castiel nods his understanding. Gregory leaves for the garage, returning with his tools and then going upstairs. Catherine remains behind, and gestures at the now empty seat next to her. He sits stiffly, back straight. Then, slowly, he slumps. He puts his arms on the table, and sinks down until his face is hidden.

Catherine puts a hand on the back of his neck, silent.

* * *

After a week of tracing the lock on his door, he takes the pill.

If Castiel is to choose between two prisons, he should choose the one that makes his parents happy.

* * *

The descent to numbness is slow. In the beginning it makes him sleepy – the first night he takes it, Gregory can't wake him sufficiently to go to school the next morning. Instead, he ends up on the couch, watching his mother go through her morning routine. He perks up in a few hours, goes on a walk (supervised, because Catherine is worried), does homework that Gregory picked up from school, and then does his normal nightly stretching and physical exercises.

The next day, he goes to school. He fails a quiz.

The day after that, he manages to do all he needs to do. And the day after, and the day after. But in the monotony of daily life is the slow crawl of the anti-psychotic through his system. He feels a calm that is oddly familiar, and he begins to retreat into his own head. It becomes harder to initiate conversation, to respond to anyone in detail. The thoughts are still there, but the desire to speak them has died.

He barely talks to his parents, when before they'd been his main source of conversation. He just can't muster the mental willpower to the task. It's easier to just remain quiet.

He hasn't gone crazy, like he'd feared, but the side effects his parents had warned him about have taken hold. Instead, he sleeps. He goes to school, does the bare minimum to get a near-perfect score. He doesn't speak.

One evening, he's sitting on the back porch, watching the sun dip beneath clouds. A flock of birds fly overhead, forming an oval. The lead bird falls back, another bird taking its place at the highest place of wind resistance. Castiel remembers doing the same as an angel, with his garrison, though they flew through a different level of reality rather than air.

He waits for a sense of loss. It doesn't come.

Unease filters through blandly, like his mind recognizes he should be upset, but the emotion fails to swell. He stares at the flock, a dark outline of wings in motion.

More than anything there's a yawning emptiness, growing larger. More encompassing. It stretches backwards into him looking at his own memories, as if he can't quite understand when he did feel more. Before the numbness. He stares at the birds, flying away, and realizes why the feeling is familiar. It's the mark of Naomi's tampering, the muting of emotions that had driven him to think on his own and rebel. Emotion gave him strength to pull away, even as it made him weak and unsure.

And now he's losing it.

As if through a fog, he feels panic. But he _feels_ panic.

 _I'd rather be a flash of a sun instead of a long burning candle._

He stands up. He goes inside, walks past his father who is watching the nightly news, and enters the kitchen. A large butcher knife sits in the wood block. He places it against his forearm, a few inches from his wrist, then slices less than a quarter of an inch deep, three inches long.

Pain flares, perfectly strong. Humanly strong. The wound fails to instantly heal. He's not in heaven.

Thank God.

Castiel feels weak with relief, then just weak. He's still bleeding. Blood pours from the wound, not anywhere near an artery, but the cut is deep enough to look frightening. He's gotten worse (once) dealing with a supernatural threat, but now he's in the middle of his kitchen, and both his parents are home. He grabs for a towel, wrapping one around the cut and drops the other to the floor. He listens for the drone of the news anchor, hoping he can clean up before his father gets up. The towel on the floor doesn't help much, smearing more than catching anything because one of his arms is pressed against his chest, trying to hold that towel close.

Two footsteps, then, "Oh my God."

Castiel looks up at his father, who is staring at him in horror. His face has gone ashen, and oddly enough there's some guilt there. Castiel swallows. "I – I need help."

For some reason, that seems to calm Gregory down. "How deep?" he asks, grabbing the large first aid kit in a cabinet.

Castiel hesitates. "Not as deep as it looks."

Gregory nods. "Don't move." He leaves and returns with a heavier towel, replacing Castiel's blood-soaked one. He looks at the wound Castiel made, wincing. "I think you need stitches. I'm taking you to the ER."

He waits a moment, but Castiel doesn't object.

"All right. Keep holding pressure." Catherine isn't home, so he leaves a message. Then he packs Castiel in the car, with two more heavy towels. He buckles Castiel in, so Castiel can keep applying pressure, and then they're off to the nearest hospital, about ten minutes away.

"Why?" Gregory asks.

Castiel stares at the darkening sky for a second. "I can't … I can't feel anything, on the medication." He swallows. "I wanted to make sure I could still feel."

Gregory nods, hands slightly trembling. "You didn't say it was that severe. Would you have cut yourself if you weren't on the medication?"

"No."

"So … the other injuries weren't self-inflicted?" Gregory asks.

Castiel shakes his head.

"Who hurt you?" When Castiel doesn't answer, he adds, voice rough, "You know your mother and I investigated everyone we knew, to find the person you told your psychologist about when you were very young. Spoke to all our family members, and friends. And friends of friends. Your friends' parents, their families."

Castiel blinks. He hadn't known that. Though Catherine had asked him about it once a week for a few months, that was the extent of it for him.

"We thought that – we still think that – whatever happened to you when you were young started all this, the things you see and how you make friends with so much difficulty. Whoever we let hurt you."

"Dad, you – that wasn't your fault. That had _nothing_ to do with you."

Gregory looks at him, grief in his eyes. "I wish you would tell me the truth."

Castiel looks at his bloody arm, held tight against his chest. The human world, outside his window. Takes a deep breath, and decides to be as truthful as he can be, and maybe a little further than that. "It was no one you knew, and it was a long time ago. And you and Mom have helped me a lot." He considers. "More than I ever thought possible," he says quietly. "I've healed more than I thought I could." Since the moment he'd woken and realized he wasn't born entirely human.

Gregory blinks, hands tight on the steering wheel.

The truth spills from Castiel, like now that pieces of it are out into the world, the rest wants to come out, too. "The places I went, at night. I was helping people. Like the kids in the basement, two years ago."

"But how? How would you even know about that, about those kids?"

Castiel shrugs. "However I know it, I know it. I wasn't wrong then, and I'm not now. I'm not mentally ill. And I don't want to die."

"You've always known things you shouldn't," Gregory says slowly. His tone is thoughtful, but there's a mix of wonder and fear on his face. "Even as a little child, you would say or do things you had no way of learning. I promised Catherine I would never say it, but you've always been – different."

Heart pounding, Castiel resists the urge to fidget. "I know. And I'm sorry for that. But I can't change it."

"Don't be sorry." Gregory pulls into the parking lot. "All I want is you safe and happy. Mostly safe, right now. Are you?"

Castiel smile sadly. "Is anyone?"

His father turns off the car. "That's not enough."

Castiel looks at him, seeing the exhaustion and fear. "What if I promise to tell you, when I know about something? To explain myself, when I need to?"

"And therapy," Gregory adds.

"No medication?"

"For now," Gregory allows.

"And the locks?"

"Stay until you are healed, and you've proven yourself trustworthy."

Vague terms, but Castiel nods his agreement.

Gregory wipes his dry eyes, then reaches over with one hand, cupping Castiel's jaw. He's still quite a bit larger than Castiel, an experience still new to him after all this time. He'd never taken a child as a vessel for any long length of time before this. Gregory's hand moves to Castiel's neck, pulling him forward, and his father kisses his forehead.

Castiel thinks this father is more present and active in his life than his first.

* * *

His aunt looks much like his mother as she sweeps into their house. Dark hair, blue eyes. But while Catherine often looks worried (which Castiel knows is partly his fault, partly just her nature), Elizabeth looks happy and carefree. She drops her heavy bags at the doorway, hugs her sister, then Gregory, and lastly Castiel. That one lasts longer; she's been talking to Catherine again.

Elizabeth steps back and introduces the man behind her. "Cas, you didn't have the chance to meet him, but this is my new husband, Paul."

Paul is number three. He looks like the sturdiest of the bunch, a very solemn face matched by a dour demeanor. Castiel nods and shakes his hand, which has unusual calluses.

Paul in turn gives Castiel a very considering look.

* * *

That night, he finds out why. Gregory gets Castiel up past midnight, leading him down the stairs where Paul sits on the living room couch. His new uncle gives him a nod while Gregory takes another seat. Castiel joins him, cautious.

"Cas," Gregory says, "I've asked Paul to teach you. He was a SEAL."

"Teach me?"

Gregory nods. "How to fight. How to defend yourself, and others."

Castiel is shocked into silence.

"I'll eval you first," Paul says. "But Greg here assures me that you're a quick learner, and that you need this now. You planning on eventually heading into the military?"

"Yes," Castiel replies, though in truth he has no idea.

"You seem smart enough for them to pay for your college, so I'd recommend doing that first." Paul rubs his mouth, thoughtful. "Backyard." He rises and heads out the door.

Castiel moves to follow, then pauses. "Thank you," he says to Gregory, and his father gives him a gentle smile.

As the moon shines down on them, Paul puts Castiel through his paces. It feels oddly like when Castiel was learning to fight, during Lucifer's fall. There's the same sense of learning a new skill in practice instead of theory. Except then he was fighting his own siblings, the third of the Host that had fallen. Paul is able to fairly easily pin Castiel once Castiel makes a mistake, though he has a harder time landing direct blows.

After another pin, Paul lets Castiel stand. "You fight like someone used to being stronger and larger than your opponent. Whoever trained you didn't train you for your actual body type."

Castiel smiles wryly.

"Your dad told me about you finding those kids a couple of years ago. That's what's driving you to learn this?"

Castiel nods.

"Twice a month, I'll come here and teach you," Paul says. "You can't just learn how to fight for the sake of fighting," he adds. "I won't teach that. I'll teach you to defend yourself and others, but that has to come first. I don't teach killing for the sake of killing. You got me?"

Amusement isn't an appropriate reaction, so Castiel says, "Yes." He looks skyward, then at his father. "I have people to protect."

* * *

So he does. Castiel learns fast. The last pieces of using this body to fight click into place. He learns how to use everything from a semi-automatic (the most common kind of gun) to full, and how to load quickly and efficiently. His marksmanship is decent, but they don't focus on sniper skills. He is, of course, deadly with a blade. Even Paul admits that.

One day, Paul asks, "You've never asked me what it's like, to kill someone."

Castiel doesn't need to ask. He knows. He's destroyed pieces of the world. Pieces of heaven. That's what killing is. Especially for angels, for which there is no life after death.

Paul drops it.

* * *

 _Anael flies to him, six wings as sharp as their blades – something that only happens when an angel is in combat or readying for it, becoming a weapon instead of the soft feathers they were at the beginning of time. A 360 degree edge. He dodges backwards as she lands next to him a flicker of a random heaven. She's angry, pulses of light flashing along the tips of her wings._

 _"There's a pattern."_

 _"What?"_

 _She drags him to the monk's heaven, his wings flapping in a half-hearted attempt to resist. "Look! There's a pattern of your missing memories. Two patterns, that's why we missed it."_

 _Castiel stares at her. "What is it?"_

 _"The first is all the times you tried to help humans in fights heaven didn't consider important. But the second – you were sent on missions. Not by me, your commander, but another. You need to remember these times," she says, pointing to his timeline. "There's something important there."_

 _"You know something, don't you?"_

 _She stares at him, dark human eyes frightened. "The end."_

* * *

Castiel is sixteen.

The moon is low in the sky, but Castiel is grateful for it anyway. The cemetery doesn't have lights, which is both a blessing and a curse. It makes it easier to go unseen, and more difficult to find what he's looking for. He hitches his bag over his shoulder again, and goes down slightly overgrown deer paths. He has a small flashlight, but he only turns it on to glance at headstones, so he maintains his night vision. He ducks past low-lying branches of the trees that surround this old portion of the cemetery, moving quietly just in case.

He hears the man first.

The distinctive noise of digging filters through a pair of trees. Castiel stalks forward, putting his flashlight away and grabbing a hunting knife. He has a gun at home, but not here. When he peers through branches, he finds a middle-aged man at a grave, shovel making a thunk each time it meets the ground. He catches a glimpse of a Glock, holstered, and a pack of salt on the ground next to the small hill of dirt.

A wave of surprise flows through Castiel. This man knows how to get rid of a malignant ghost. He hasn't seen anyone with that kind of knowledge since the FBI agent, and even then Castiel was never sure if he was believed.

He stands still, wavering on what to do. Turn around? Or come forward? The man might know things Castiel would find useful. He sheathes his knife.

Castiel wouldn't be alone.

The ghost appears at the edge of Castiel's vision. She's hazy, not completely manifesting in the visible plane, so she looks like a collection of fog or mist. She's behind the man, but even if she were in front of him, he may not actually recognize her. Castiel knows he sees ghosts and monsters far more easily than a normal human. Gregory isn't far off in thinking Castiel's psychic. He eyes the ghost, wondering if he should go ahead with his own plan to deal with her.

He thinks the death was an accident. The teenager may have fallen through the floor simply because of poor maintenance – the house the ghost haunts is long-abandoned, and it wouldn't take much to get a drunk teenager running recklessly in the house Shelly Young committed suicide.

Shelly begins to come together. She's frowning, more like she's puzzled than angry, and gets closer to the man determined to banish her, peering over his shoulder at her own grave.

Castiel comes out of hiding, speaking a single word in Enochian to her: rit. _Forgive._

The man whirls, gun in hand, but his expression almost immediately goes from alertness to a disgruntled disgust. Then he sees Shelly and reacts instantly, grabbing a tire iron and swinging it right through her. She shrieks and disappears.

"Kid –"

Castiel keeps talking, knowing Shelly is still nearby. It's half of a spell, half simply spoken word. It's not one Castiel has used in centuries, but it seems appropriate now – a spell that's a song of absolution. It's one that angels used to sing to comfort one another after Lucifer's fall, and was later used by angels that wandered the earth, offering God's love. Long ago. The words fall easily, his native language beautiful to hear after all this time.

Shelly reappears in front of him. The man takes two steps forward as if to swing his tire iron again, but hesitates when Castiel holds out his hand to say 'stop.' After a second, he moves closer, but doesn't take the swing. He's eyeing Castiel now, suspicion on his face.

Castiel knows she understands him. Ghosts live their deaths in a loop, but many of the restrictions of life fade over time, so he knows in some way she knows his words. Souls are supernatural, and that's the part that remains; she recognizes kin, in that sense. She drifts nearer, listening raptly to his words. _Forgive yourself as I do,_ he finishes.

He takes a bound snippet of hair out of his pocket, along with a lighter, and then sets the hair alight.

She vanishes, leaving a familiar emptiness behind. She's gone. Truly gone.

The man grunts. "Salt and burn is better. More permanent." Castiel can see him better now, see the lines on his face. He's got a little gray streaked through his hair, but Castiel would guess he's barely fifty, if that. When he approaches Castiel, he can see that the man moves much like Paul does. "You a hunter?"

Castiel is thrown for a second. What does this have to do with hunting animals?

"Kid, you shouldn't be here," his voice rough. "Ghosts can be dangerous. This isn't some game."

Castiel frowns. "Non-malignant ghost in 1990, changeling in 1991, lone vampire, shadow and three ghosts in 1993, shadow again in 1995, black dog six months ago, wendigo two months. That one was the next town over, though."

"Five hunts in '93, huh?" The man – the hunter – seems amused.

"It was one of those years," Castiel replies.

"You're telling me that was you? You kept this city safe for five years? What were you five years ago, ten?"

"Eleven, actually."

The hunter goes back to the grave and picks up the shovel. There's an undercurrent of condescension as he asks, "You were on your own? And how did you manage that?"

Castiel shrugs. "Very carefully, and not without some mistakes."

The hunter doesn't answer for a long moment. "What's your name, kid? You shouldn't be out here alone."

Slight hesitation. "What's yours?"

He scowls, but answers. "John Winchester."

"Cas Novak."

John nods, as if that's enough. "I'll have someone get in touch with you."

He insists on digging up the grave and burning the bones, having Castiel do most of the work – not out of any desire not to do it himself, but as a test. Castiel has dug up graves a few times, and knows to go slow and steady. While he works, John asks him questions about ghosts, spirits, even the fey. Castiel is able to answer most of them, only missing a few. He doesn't flinch at the sight of the body, which still has traces of tissue. John pours on gasoline and salt, and Castiel drops the match.

They depart separately, with a gruff promise from John to get Castiel some backup and training. Not from him.

John Winchester. Somehow, the name is familiar.

.

.

.

* * *

Castiel's experience of psychiatry is not exactly the best here, and is not a reflection of my opinion of psychiatry and psychology (both of which I have experience with as a mentally ill person). My own experiences were almost entirely positive, some medication side-effects/problems aside. ;) But I couldn't help but think that Castiel would associate it with Naomi, and have a really hard time - especially since he really isn't crazy! His side effects are based on my own. I did a little research on how children are approached (I was treated as an adult), but I may get some things wrong.


End file.
